An upcoming talk on Iran is the last in the Willamette Valley Forum series on “U.S. Foreign Policy: The Middle East and Asia,” for the spring term. The series starts up again in the fall.

Bahram Tavakolian, an anthropologist at Willamette University, will speak on “Tensions and Tenuousness in Iran’s Relations with the United States: From Operation Ajax to the Present.”  The talk takes place at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, 645 N.W. Monroe Avenue.

Tavakolian, a native of Iran, earned his Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles. He was on the faculty at Denison University, in Granville, Ohio, from 1979 to 2006. He joined Willamette in 2007.

At Willamette, he teaches classes on Afghanistan and the Iranian revolutions.

Tavakolian’s presentation, which is co-sponsored by the Oregon State University Department of Political Science and the Institute for Peace and Justice at Linn Benton Community College, is free and open to the public.